How an Earl crashed the King's party

Eccentric: The Earl of Clanwilliam rode a Harley Davidson to meet the King of Bahrain at Heathrow airport

When King Hamad of Bahrain flew into Heathrow this week on a charm-offensive, which included meeting David Cameron at Downing Street, he was anxious to make a good impression.

Accusations of human rights abuses and persecution of political protesters have plagued the kingdom.

Alas, the visit took an unexpected turn after the King’s long-standing friend the Earl of Clanwilliam, better known as Old Etonian public relations smoothie Paddy Gillford, chose to meet the monarch at the airport on a Harley-Davidson which has the Bahraini flag painted on in camp Priscilla Queen Of The Desert-style.

The police, I am told, were not keen on the PR man joining the convoy into central London. But he was permitted to follow the entourage, which had police outriders escorting the party up the M4.

But disaster struck at Earls Court where there was a collision between Gillford’s motorcycle and the limousine transporting Bahrain’s ambassador to London, Alice Samaan, who only last week presented her credentials to the Queen.

Although shaken by the accident, which happened on Tuesday, by yesterday she and her staff were light-heartedly referring to it as a ‘diplomatic incident’.

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Twice-married Gillford, 50, a former Coldstream Guards officer, was also making light of the matter at Bahrain’s National Day celebration party at the Dorchester where he told friends about his prang.

Talks: David Cameron with King Hamad of Bahrain outside Downing Street this week

His passion for motorcycles led to a more serious scrape riding from London to Bahrain last year. He crashed in Saudi Arabia, breaking his ankle. ‘Paddy is like Mr Toad in the Wind In The Willows,’ says a friend. ‘He loves high jinks.’

Friends still talk of his second wedding, in 1995, to designer Cara de la Pena in the crypt of the Commons. He whisked his bride off in a pink painted tank while spraying his guests with champagne.

The colourful lobbyist shot off one of his fingers during a lively stag party in 1989. Of Tuesday’s crash, he told me last night: ‘I have no comment on this.’

Sissons not impressed with Channel 4 revamp

The radical revamp of Channel 4 news has not met with the approval of Jon Snow’s predecessor, Peter Sissons. Urbane Sissons, who was the presenter between 1982 and 1989, believes the bulletin is jeopardising its reputation for serious news by the changes which have partially side-lined Snow.

Now 69, Sissons, whose expanded autobiography When One Door Closes appears in the New Year, tells me at a Kensington cocktail party: ‘I don’t like the new look. It seems that the new co-presenter Cathy Newman is always appearing wearing a cocktail dress. It has become more entertainment than news.’

Tamsin’s dad puts Cherie in a spin

Tall order: Tamsin Egerton needs a Christmas jumper

Is Cherie Blair a champagne socialist? For ballet-loving Cherie nearly fell over after she slipped on a puddle of spilt fizz at a cocktail party to launch English National Ballet’s Christmas production of The Nutcracker.

It was all the fault of lofty actress Tamsin Egerton, 23, who had brought her businessman father Michael to the bash.

Unfortunately, Michael, 64, managed to knock over a glass of bubbly seconds before Cherie walked by with her daughter, Kathryn.

‘Cherie skated around for a second before regaining her balance. It looked like a rather fetching pirouette worthy of the ballet she was going to see,’ says an amused onlooker.

St Trinian’s star Tamsin explains: ‘I love the ballet, I was training to be a dancer but my limbs were very long and I got too tall and so I had to give it up when I was 12.’

Her near-6ft frame brings other complications. ‘What I want for Christmas is a sweater. It is freezing cold outside and I can’t seem to find a jumper with arms long enough to fit me,’ says Tamsin, who rather than her actor boyfriend Ben Barnes, invited along her father.

‘He loves the ballet and the music makes him blub,’ she says.

Prince Philip's private gallery tour

Spotted emerging from the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery yesterday was Prince Philip. The Prince had clearly had an early breakfast and driven up The Mall to the Gallery to see the Leonardo exhibition before the 10am opening, where queues were already building.

Of course, it does help when one wants a private view of a sell-out show if one’s wife has leant nearly all the drawings. Might Philip have been drawn to the room devoted to The Last Supper? One drawing, Head Of Youth, has as its caption: ‘The study of Saint Philip is among the most beautiful of the idealised heads made as The Last Supper was being prepared.’

Modest Marina marries her manager

Demure: Singer Marina Laslo

She once refused to take part in a raunchy photoshoot, and stormed out of a meeting with a major record company because bosses wanted to sex up her image, declaring she hated the way singers such as Katherine Jenkins show off her decolletage in low-cut dresses.

So it’s hardly surprising that Russian opera singer and classical violinist Marina Laslo has posed for rather demure photographs to celebrate her wedding.

Marina, 27, who used to date libidinous chef Jean-Christophe Novelli, has found happiness, she tells me, with her long-term friend and now manager Serge Andre, a fellow Russian.

A graduate of the St Petersburg Musical Academy, Marina found it hard to pursue her career in her native country because, she says, the music business in Moscow is ‘riddled with corruption’, and so moved to London in 2003.

She has since released six successful albums and regularly tours all over Europe.

However, the couple decided to return to their homeland to marry.

‘We had a civil ceremony and we are very happy,’ says Marina, who will be performing her Russian Romance show at the Purcell Rooms at London’s South Bank in February.

Former jockey's act of altruism

Grand National hero Richard Pitman is
donating one of his kidneys. . . but he had to convince his wife first.
‘Mandy’s reaction was: “It’s your decision and that’s fine, but I’d
prefer that you didn’t do it,” says the former jockey.

‘My younger daughter thought the same but my other daughter, a
physiotherapist who is married to a doctor who’s been a bone marrow
donor, backed me all the way. I’m glad to say they’re all behind me now,
which is great,’ adds Richard, 68, who was inspired by the ordeal of a
close friend, Tim Gibson, who would have died from kidney failure had
one not been available for a transplant.

Pitman will undergo the operation at the Nuffield Hospital, Oxford, in
the New Year and in preparation has been told to lose a stone, cut his
evening wine from three glasses to one and swap his bedtime whisky and
water for yoghurt.

War hero's unusual service

There was a linguistic treat at the memorial service yesterday for adventurer and war hero Sir Paddy Leigh Fermor, who died in June at the age of 96.

His biographer, Artemis Cooper, and her father, Viscount Norwich, ended the service at St James’s, Piccadilly, by singing D’Ye Ken John Peel and Widecombe Fair — in Italian.

Sir Paddy Leigh Fermor's biographer, Artemis Cooper, and her father, ended the service at St James's, Piccadilly, by singing in Italian

‘These had both been translated by Paddy and very odd they sounded,’ says another pal, Rebecca Wallersteiner, who recalls how she met the debonair Leigh Fermor over lunch at the King’s School Canterbury a couple of years ago.

‘Although he had been expelled for “holding hands with a greengrocer’s daughter in town” in 1931, the school had asked him back to open a new house — which rather bemused him,’ says Rebecca.

Rather a lot of wine was taken at the lunch and Rebecca adds: ‘He was taken ill in the evening and sang It’s A Long Way to Tipperary in Hindi waiting for the doctor.’

PSMuch amusement at Sotheby’s annual Christmas lunch, where Michael Winner, a regular speaker, observed: ‘This is a very humiliating day for our host Henry Wyndham [Sotheby’s chairman] because he has had to witness the enormous success of the Christie’s sale of Elizabeth Taylor’s jewellery which fetched astronomical prices. However, I can assure you all that Henry is not taking this lying down. Tomorrow, Sotheby’s will announce the sale of Nancy Dell’Olio’s dancing trophies.’